


inane silhouette

by CampionSayn



Series: black smoke, "now you see me, now you don't" [4]
Category: Wolverine and the X-Men (Comics), X-Force (Comics), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Darkholme just needed a friend without the baggage, Gen, Ghost Kurt Darkholme, Taking What I Want from Canon and Leaving the Rest for the Sake of a Better Story, When you can't find what you want and go about making it yourself, canon? i don't know her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:29:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27946826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: There is no fashionable way to realize there's a dead guy wandering the halls and you're the only one that really sees them.
Relationships: Kurt Darkholme & Kitty Pryde
Series: black smoke, "now you see me, now you don't" [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/414299
Comments: 29
Kudos: 5





	inane silhouette

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mikeellee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikeellee/gifts).



> I haven't read the comics in a while, nor do I plan to. I'm going into this sandbox just to see what happens.

It was funny, but she really didn't pity him, and that was probably the one thing he expected of her.  
  
  
He liked it better that way. Wandering the Earth he didn't know without being seen by most of the population was bad enough, but to be pitied by one that could see and hear and, apparently, touch him would have been an insult to the still tenuous vestiges of his drawn and quartered pride.  
  
*  
  
Darkholme had no intent or purpose when he found himself back at that school or down in the caverns where X-Force had carried on as ever they did from one mission to the next--spotting his bright doppelganger returned from the dead around and about here and there. Astounding that Logan confused him with the young man so much, when it seemed they had little in common except the ability to go on in tragedy.  
  
He didn't really have anywhere else to go that was a small comfort in the familiar enough, so he stuck around.  
  
Maybe that was the strangest choice he could have made, but it kept him sane enough when the reality that he was never going to see Linda again as he was hit him like a train and he spent what felt like a fort night howling in misery of all that he did, all that he might have done, and still having no true remorse for enacting vengeance upon the people who'd wrong him.  
  
When he'd worn himself down to a pale shadow of consciousness, he tried to make his days less terrible than he'd known alive and observed the future that came with the child mutants in a world that wasn't perfect, but was still much better than the one he'd come from.  
  
  
Then he bumped into the Pryde woman when she was passing through a wall he was passing by and he found himself with something like companionship.  
  
  
"Logan said you were dead."  
  
"I am."  
  
There wasn't an ounce of surprise on her face when he said this, when she blinked at his figure with traces of blood and the residue of his last battle, Logan's finger marks round his neck visible even with his thin blue fur.  
  
  
She'd merely shrugged, adjusting her guise of a headmistress--loose lilac cardigan that was so worn out that one sleeve was dangerously close of always falling off the shoulder, jeans that looked comfortable but sturdy enough to get her from one place to another in a hurry, Okabashi clogs that he'd seen in shop windows that were infinitely better for the environment than average--before waving him towards Hank's office.  
  
"C'mon then, let's see what we can do."  
  
*  
  
Logan was reasonably displeased when Hank called him up three hours later, after much back of forth of Pryde speaking for him when Hank asked questions about his death; the feeling of being puled apart to bring dimensions together, the energy that must have made up his present form, why only the woman could interact with him. He had ideas of what could be done, of course he did, but he wanted to run it by Wolverine first, despite Pryde practically hissing, "Logan doesn't have the last say in these decisions, Hank."  
  
"No, but he might have useful opinions, given how things turned out."  
  
Kurt eyed the way her face had pinched, irritation evident as her breathing, but she'd still asked Kurt if he wanted to speak with Wolverine before they called him down.  
  
Like it mattered to her if he wad comfortable with the situation, despite knowing all he'd done, and despite his being too dead for the man to injure him even if the meeting that followed turned into a confrontation.  
  
  
Logan did show up, and had one nugget of a good idea when he'd asked Pryde to try and tap Darkholme's shoulder and they all found that if she focused, she could bring him into a semi-corporeal state of being where he could be heard and seen and almost but not quite feel the ground under his feet.  
  
He felt like every piece of himself was stuck in that place between being comfortably at rest and all of his limbs being asleep. Prickly and irritated and too alert, but it was still a far cry better than it had been before the lot of them put some effort and brains into helping him out.  
  
  
His "good twin" was about as okay with Darkholme sticking around as he was able--which was still a shit-ton better than Darkholme himself would have responded if the tables had been reversed.  
  
The only thing they really seemed to disparage and despair over in perfect tandem was Hank putting Kitty up to having tests run on the viability of her mutation somehow pulling him out of his separation from their dimension and reality and into an existence that could be called 'alive' if they stretched it.  
  
  
Neither of them really wanted her to do it. Too many variations on a theme that ran through both of their lives insisted on reminding them of all the things that could go wrong.  
  
Kitty seemed to be amenable to Hank's tests just so she could get out of grading papers and pawning them off on Wolverine.  
  
*  
  
"You're old."  
  
Not where he thought the prolonged murmuring between Wagner and Pryde would lead while Hank ran the tests and Darkholme tried to pretend he was anywhere else, but okay then.  
  
He swiveled his gaze from staring outside at the birds flittering on the wind, avoiding leaves fallen from the school's roof and the stray teenagers out to lunch, finding the woman--still connected to him by a fingertip--squinting at his scar and hair and general state of being before looking at him straight on.  
  
"Yes, but I still look dashing, so there's hope for your friend there."  
  
Wagner sputtered from his place in the doorway, bringing the both of them high tea and biscuits, indignant and ignorant of the wink Darkholme threw Kitty's way at the agreeable smile that got out of her.

**Author's Note:**

> Written to _mikeellee,_ because they're the steadfast carrier for the banner of these two.


End file.
